2024 PeopleforBikes City Rating Scores.
Seven years ago, our friends at PeopleforBikes began a City Ratings program to measure the quality of a city’s bike network. Since then, they have benchmarked progress to improve bicycling in cities nationwide. In 2019, only 32 U.S. cities received a score of 50 or higher, a significant tipping point to becoming a great place to bike. Thanks to dedicated work by advocacy groups and transportation officials and local investments in the creation of safe, fun, and connected places to ride, 33 cities that scored below 50 in 2019 increased their scores to 50 or higher in 2024. Combined with new cities added to the program over that time, an impressive 183 U.S. cities scored above 50 in this year’s City Ratings.
In Fairfax County, eleven cities were rated: Burke, Chantilly, Fairfax City, Falls Church, Herndon, Lorton, McLean, Reston, Springfield, Vienna, and West Springfield. Unfortunately, in examining our area’s connected system of protected bike lanes, off-street paths, slow shared streets, and safe crossings that enable people to comfortably bike around a city, PeopleforBikes gave none of the localities a score higher than 46 (Good job, Fairfax City! You also ranked #4 in Virginia and #19 in the Southern Region).
You can explore their ratings and find more details on how Fairfax County localities scored here.
The City Ratings score bike networks on a scale of 0 – 100. A low score (0-20) indicates a weak bike network, meaning the city lacks safe bikeways or there are gaps in the network. A high score (80-100) indicates that most common destinations are accessible by safe, comfortable bike routes that serve people of all ages and abilities.
The City Ratings score relies on data about streets, speed limits, bike infrastructure, and destinations documented in OpenStreetMap, a crowd-sourced map of the world. Cities are then rated in these areas:
- PEOPLE – Access to parts of the city where residents live.
- OPPORTUNITY – Access to jobs and schools.
- CORE SERVICES – Access to places that serve basic needs, like hospitals and grocery stores.
- RECREATION – Access to recreational amenities like parks and trails.
- RETAIL – Access to major shopping centers.
- TRANSIT – Access to major transit hubs
FABB believes that this approach provides a general overview but misses important details. When Fairfax County city scores are examined in detail, we think the ratings undervalue factors like access to transit hubs for our county.
FABB encourages local riders to help improve PeopleForBikes data by updating OpenStreetMap. Check out the following resources for guidance here:
FABB also encourages city staffs and local advocates to fill out the PeopleforBikes City Snapshot feedback form. The City Snapshot ensures they have accurate data, provides feedback to improve the City Ratings program, and helps them share what our area is doing to grow its bike network.
This information is critical for informing transportation policy decisions and decisions by advocacy groups on where to concentrate their efforts. Please take a few minutes to examine the City Rankings information and then help improve the data by submitting your comments as suggested above.
The one inescapable conclusion of these ratings is that we have a lot to do to make bicycling better in Fairfax County. Won’t you please join FABB in advocating for the safe, accessible, and inviting bicycle infrastructure we need? Contact us at [email protected].
